1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and systems for geolocation, and more particularly, to a method and system for determining the geographic history of a target of interest (i.e., the probability that a sample of interest passed though a defined location) given a combination of spatially attributable input data and weighing distributions.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an increasingly interconnected world, there is a need to quickly and efficiently track the geographic origin or travel history of an item. Forensic palynology, for example, is the study of pollen to determine the geographic location an item might have originated from or traveled through, as well as when it might have done so. Forensic palynology is often used by law enforcement to gather evidence about certain types of crimes.
Forensic palynology is one of many methods of geolocation that can be used for numerous applications including: (i) determining the travel history of a person or item; (ii) determining the point of origin of a person or item; and (iii) estimating the approximate date or time of year that an object was in a geographic location, among others.
Prior pollen-based geolocation methods have relied on human expertise, an approach that is qualitative rather than quantitative in nature, or on simulation-based approaches (e.g. Monte Carlo simulation) to empirically geolocate. Further, prior pollen-based geolocation methods are by their nature limited to pollen-specific data, and geolocation methods used on other spatial data types are typically limited to performing analyses on that data type.